Stars Don't Shine
by hexterah
Summary: Thomas Turner prepares to help Atlas in his fight on New Years Eve while Tommy's wife plans a surprise for him to ring in the new year. A story featuring a few original characters plus some familiar faces. One-poster/short story. Written: 01/31/08


**Author's Note: **Bioshock is most definitely one of my favorite video games ever and at one point I just started getting all these ideas for stories that take place in Rapture. This was the first one I wrote and features a batch of original characters, plus a little smattering of familiar faces here and there. Written: 01/31/2008.

* * *

**Stars Don't Shine**

Judith was born into money. I wasn't.

I didn't marry her for that though, no. I loved her with all my heart. She was my everything.

We came down to Rapture right after it was built to live a better life, to balance our classes out, to stay away from the greed and corruption on land. Of course, after seeing what this place was turning into, we occasionally debated on whether or not we had made the right choice. We occasionally joked about it, like it would never affect us and it would sort itself out. Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine were like two distant politicians to our collective mind, arguing and coming to terms at some point. Our city would be better in no time, like always.

We had a daughter together here, in Rapture. Shirley Turner.

I remember her eighth birthday. The end of November in 1958. I remember her sitting on the floor of our apartment at the Artemis Suites, playing with the teddy bear we got her. It was a big thing, almost the size of her, and she would stomp around in her barefeet, running back and forth with it in her tiny hands. It had brown fur, almost the same color of Shirley's eyes and hair.

I remember near the end of December, lying in bed with Judith one night. I had her wrapped up in my arms and we had been talking softly about life in general, nothing specific. Then seemly out of nowhere she pulled her head from my chest and looked at me with those big blue eyes.

"I want to see the stars again, Tommy."

It was a jolting sort of thing to say. We were thousands of feet under the water and we were set to live out our lives there. No contact with the surface, no items from the surface, no nothing from the surface -- which definitely meant no going back to the surface.

I just smiled at her, agreed with her that I would like to see them one day again too and pulled her head back to my chest. She fell asleep a few minutes later while I stroked her dark hair. I never really thought of the surface much anymore.

I worked in Neptune's Bounty, at Fighting McDonagh's Tavern. Judith didn't know I was also skirting on the edge with the smugglers. I never did any of the dangerous jobs with them though, no. I had a family to worry about. When there was talk of rebellion against Andrew Ryan, I laughed it off. There was nothing like that where Judith worked. She was over in Le Marquis D'Epoque at Fort Frolic. People didn't talk of rebellion there. People talked about money and clothes and tobacco and other people.

Since ADAM was so scarce, we had only tried out a few of the new plasmids, usually just amused at their effect. I would levitate Shirley's bear just out of her reach while she giggled and jumped at it, Judith sometimes cheated while cooking and used a bit of heat to speed up dinner, and I fixed some of the electronics around the apartment with only a small injection of EVE. I also liked to give a little playful electric jolt to Judy at the small of her back while she was waking up in the morning. It took us forever to drag ourselves out of bed in the morning. We never wanted to leave each other's company.

Life seemed perfect. Nothing could go wrong. Rapture was on the rise and us Turner's were in an almost perfect place to take advantage of it.

Until New Year's Eve, 1958.

And I only say almost because of our class. There was a rigid sort of system in Rapture, even though that seemed to be one of the things we were all collectively trying to escape when coming down here.

There had been talk of Atlas, the leader of the main rebellion against Ryan, leading a set of raids right before the new year rang in. I saw the man with my own eyes, rallying people at the Wharf, out of the public eye. He was telling us of Ryan's greed and corruption. Atlas was saying we should be living the way _we_ want to live and not how Ryan wants us to live. He told us that he had control of most of the ADAM in the city -- he said a whole number of things, the guy did. And they all made sense. I found myself a casual follower of Atlas and his preachings.

I had to go to work on New Year's Eve, and Judith and Shirley were watching television when I left. I had leaned over the couch and planted a kiss on Judy's forehead.

"Don't come home too late," she whispered before I pulled my head away from her.

"Why?" I moved back and looked at her, eyebrows raised suggestively.

She managed to almost suppress a tiny lopsided grin, the one she always got when she was hiding something -- the one that made me fall in love with her again every time I saw it.

"No reason," she murmured.

"Mmmhmm, sure." I responded in the tone I used when I knew she was lying, not managing to keep the grin from my face as I did so. Turning my attention to my daughter, I whistled to her. It was one of the only things that could get her attention away from the television. "See you later, Shirls."

"Bye daddy!" She jumped up and ran to the door to cut me off before I got there, throwing her arms around my legs and giving me as big a hug as she could manage. "Hey!" Pulling back, she looked up into my eyes as I stood in the open doorway. "Want to have a New Year's Tea Party with me tomorrow?"

"Of course I do. That would be very nice."

She ran off after I responded, across the living area to her mother, where she started spouting excitedly about her upcoming tea party. Judith nodded to her and laughed, peering over Shirley's head for a moment to blow me a kiss. I winked to her and left the apartment to head to Neptune's Bounty.

The raids were being prepared for when I got there. I didn't think they were actually going to go through with it, but when I saw that they were, I could feel my heart instantly pounding. I saw people with needles of EVE, I saw people loading guns, and I saw men laughing, women talking. Atlas walked over to me. Atlas himself.

"Tommy Turner!"

"Evening, Mr. Atlas."

What the hell else was I supposed to call him?

"Have you come just to work? Or have you come to join the rebellion?"

I had been ready to go in and wipe down the bar and serve alcohol to some of the off-duty fishermen like every other night, but Atlas definitely had me intrigued. And he knew this.

"What is the plan exactly?" I asked.

Atlas shrugged. "To hit the upper class, of course. We work so much harder than them down here, yet they get paid more and get more benefits. Their living situations are better, their workplaces are better. They get everything for nothing -- and what do we get?"

I stared to him, waiting for an answer.

"We get nothing! So it's time to show them what we got, boyo." He shoved a shotgun into my chest. "Do it for yourself." Leaning in closer, he gave me a pat on the back. "Do it for your family."

I had my fingers clutched, white-knuckled, around the shotgun. My mind was ready for this. I was ready for this. My family was ready for this. We deserved better than an apartment with a bathroom, a bedroom and a small kitchen off of the tiny living area -- not to mention the number of things broken in there. I was sick of coming home smelling like booze and fish all the time and not being able to wash the stink off. I was surprised Judy ever bothered to touch me, let alone kiss me.

Atlas had turned away from me and was rallying all the rebels and assigning their targets.

"We're off to get the uppers, men! You all over here are headed to Olympus Heights. You all, Fort Frolic. And you all," he pointed to the area where I was standing. "Kashmir Restaurant. I hear they're having a swinging party there tonight!"

Things blurred there. I remember injecting myself with EVE, gaining a number of plasmids after receiving more ADAM. I felt stronger, more alive. I felt _ready_.

We walked calmly towards Kashmir, our group did, weapons hidden from plain view. We got looks as we walked, some people hid from us, others gawked -- a group of more than four people together was almost unheard of in Rapture. Security didn't bother coming after us. But we knew that Ryan was watching us through every camera we passed. We knew he was calculating this action and trying to figure out exactly what we were up to.

I'm sure we shocked him when we just showed up at certain places unannounced and pulled weapons and explosives. There was a sea of revelers dressed in their finest when we arrived at the Kashmir Restaurant, all of them wearing some sort of animal masks. I saw cats and rabbits mostly; masks Shirley would've thought were adorable. I could hear her begging for one in my head. I smiled. I was doing this for her and Judy. For my family.

A number of the rebels cried out. Some charged, blunt weapons like wrenches and pipes swinging into the uppers closest to where we entered. Some took a perch on the bar and began sniping at the masked patrons with their firearms. I waited for a lull in the shooting and followed a few men and women to the balcony overlooking the lower floor. A sea of masked people was spread out below and they were all tense, looking up at us with blank eyes. They didn't know what was happening on the upper floor, but we were damn well ready to give them a taste of it.

I vaulted over the railing to the bottom floor, absorbing the impact with one of the many plasmids in my physical stock and opened fire on all the angry and suddenly violent upper classmen who were coming at me. I saw other rebels doing the same. I saw plasmids being used. Telekinesis on knives which were thrown, untouched by the human hand, into the chests of rabbit-faced men. Burning cat-faced women screaming as they ran by, arms waving wildly. I was having a grand old time with a pompous ass who was teasing me about working near the fishery. He was threatening me with a small pistol he had pulled from his jacket.

"Here fishy fishy! You smell like your job, you piss poor--"

He couldn't finish his sentence before I blasted him in the chest twice with the shotgun Atlas had handed me.

I killed a good number of them before I heard something over the chaos.

"Tommy?!"

That voice. _That voice_.

I lowered my shotgun and ducked behind a table, turning towards the sound of the voice calling my name.

Judy. Oh God, _Judy_.

There was a party mask on her face. A cat. But I could still tell it was her. I knew her voice. I knew her body. It was her.

She was stumbling forward, grabbing tables and chairs on her way by, to keep herself from swaying right to the ground. There was a slash across her face. It looked like a bullet had grazed her cheek, but I couldn't really tell. I didn't have time before one the rebels tossed an explosive over the side of the railing on the floor above. It hit the ground near her and threw her backwards when it exploded.

"Judy!" I yelled to her, my ears still ringing from the blast. I couldn't hear myself. I couldn't hear anything for a few moments except a loud ringing. "Judy!" I started to run towards where she had been, throwing the shotgun to the floor. There was a steady stream of water coming into the restaurant from somewhere to my right. I figured the blast had caused it to spring a leak or two. All the more reason to get her and get out of there as fast as possible. I briefly wondered why she was there, but didn't bother thinking of it again until much later -- right now I was focused on getting her help.

The smoke lifted and I saw her once more.

"Thomas!"

She was screaming to me, crawling across the floor as the water spilled onto the marble around her, through the trampling feet and the high heels and the rebels and the debris. She was bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth, her arm reaching out and up towards me. Her feline mask was hanging off of her left ear now, which was covered in blood and matted hair. I could see the plastic whiskers tickling her cheek and tracing lines through the crimson across her face. She had another mask in her hand, a rabbit.

It fell into the pool of water which was now forming in the lower area of the restaurant. A circular area almost completely surrounded by windows made up the main part of the floor, and was sunken down a few steps. Judith had been seated in that area when we busted in, no doubt.

I was on the bottom step, kneeling beside her, the water up to my knees if I was standing and it was still rising. I pulled her to me, and wrapped my arms around her. She was completely soaked now, in water and blood, her dress -- one that I always thought she looked absolutely gorgeous in -- was damp and torn, and the pale blue fabric was stained crimson.

I was so caught up in the fact that Judith was horribly injured in my arms that I didn't even realize what the bastard behind me was doing. I heard a scream of "Atlas lives!" -- and then an arc of lightning flew from the man's hand over our heads and into the water. Into the water we were wading in. Into the water that a good number of uppers were still trying to make an escape from.

The rebels were lucky enough to have the Electric Flesh plasmid in their system -- I was lucky enough to. We had planned it this way. We injected it before we left, knowing we'd need it. The electricity in the water didn't hurt us. We were ready. We were _lucky_.

Judith wasn't.

I tried to pull her out of the water in time. Goddamn, I tried.

I held her in my arms as she died, twitching and holding onto me, fingers clutching and then relaxing, over and over again until they didn't move anymore.

We were still causing trouble. I saw men in the water ahead of me, using wrenches to beat bone and muscle still moving, guys upstairs still shooting the upper class. There was movement all around me from the living beings, fighting and screaming. There were bodies, stationary, floating around me in the water. I let Judith go, pushing her out into the large pool of water that made up half of the lower floor of the restaurant now. They had taken care of all the uppers there, so the pool ahead of me seemed somewhat serene now. The rebels were still fighting behind me.

I wanted to take her body with me, desperately. But I didn't know where to go with it.

She was gone. And I was alone now.

I had to get back to Shirley.

It was almost impossible to get out of that restaurant without getting harmed. A bullet grazed my shoulder and I almost got slapped in the face with a wrench. But I made it out and was still able to sprint, which was the only thing I cared about at that point. If Judith was at Kashmir, where was Shirley?

I ran out of the restaurant to chaos. The level below me was dotted with small fires, but I managed to make it to the bathysphere alright, which I took with a couple other rebels to Apollo Square. As we moved through the ocean, I could only stare wide-eyed out the glass portal. Flames licked in different windows along the city, some areas had lost power -- there were tunnels which were airlocked because there were leaks in them. A few fish passed the portal and I almost screamed out in shock. I had been looking at the damage we were causing so intently that I had forgotten everything around me.

We were really causing trouble, except I had caused enough to last me a lifetime and beyond now.

The others raced out ahead of me when we arrived, to where I assumed they were going back to their families, who were all alive and well, most likely.

I stumbled out of the bathysphere and headed towards Artemis Suites. My vision was blurry and my head felt heavy. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. I was now going back to only one of the most important women in my life, to a place where they both should've been. I wanted to scream out to Judy, to ask her why she was there.

Why the hell was she at the Kashmir Restaurant?! Why tonight? Why now? _Why there?_

I busted through the door of the apartment and stormed around, looking for my daughter. I knew Judith wouldn't just leave her there alone but I knew Judith also wouldn't have let me come home from work to find them both gone. There it was -- she left a note on the bed. I could smell her perfume lingering in the air, which drifted into my nose as I sniffled. I read the note through my tears, which appeared when I saw her handwriting scrawled across the paper and they streamed down my cheeks, falling onto the note and smearing some of the letters.

_Tommy,_

_Hope you get home before 11:30. I got us a special reservation at the Kashmir Restaurant to celebrate the New Year! I also have something to tell you, but doing that and celebrating the New Year can go hand in hand. Killing two birds with one stone, that's what you always say, yes?_

_I know you've always wanted to eat there but always say you're too poor, which you know isn't true. So I got us a reservation through a few contacts at Fort Frolic and I was hoping you'd join me before midnight. Shirley is with Martha next door. The little angel was already asleep by nine and Martha said she would take care of her while you and I had a night out._

_I'll be at a table on the lower floor, in the circular salon and I'll be wearing that dress you love so much. It shouldn't be too hard to find me, I hope! See you soon._

_Love always,_

_Judy_

Dropping the note back on the bed, I felt my stomach churning and my head getting lighter. I felt like I was about to vomit or pass out. I figured both would come within a matter of seconds until my thoughts went to Shirley. I had to go next door to Shirley. I had no idea what I was going to tell her about her mother, but I needed her in my arms. I was so blinded by my sudden rage and grief that I didn't even bother to change out of the clothes that had her mother's blood all over them.

This would be the worst thing ever, I thought. Telling my daughter her mother was dead while cradling her to my chest, which in turn was soaked in Judy's blood.

But no, worse still was the note I found at the apartment next to ours with Martha, who I found crying her eyes out in a ball on the floor. There was a piece of crinkled paper in her hands and she was screaming unintelligible words. I moved to her, to help her up and as I did, she shoved the paper into my chest and heaved the words:

"They just broke in..."

My heart sank. I knew what the note was going to say. I knew exactly what it would say. I had heard rumors of that kind of note before but I wasn't sure they actually existed -- that they actually did this sort of thing.

The urge to vomit and pass out returned as my eyes hit the paper. I was right.

_Good evening!_

_We are leaving this note to inform you that we have taken your daughter to help save Rapture! She is an important asset to the beautiful city we all live in and is needed to keep it magnificent. She is safe with us and there is no need to worry. Please do not try to contact your daughter as she will be busy with the super significant task of saving our wonderful world!_

_Stay safe!_

_-- The Little Wonders Team_

There was a drawing of a smiling little girl on the upper corner of the paper, which I promptly crumbled up and chucked across the room, over Martha's head. I said nothing to her; I knew it wasn't her fault. I knew she couldn't stop them.

I went straight from the apartment to Andrew Ryan to plead my case, running across the courtyards and corridors, through tunnels and over plazas. When I was moving through Fort Frolic, I passed Le Marquis D'Epoque and felt my stomach turn over once more. They were short an employee now, probably more, because of the multiple raids. The city was still going insane around me with the aftermath of it. Nobody was paying attention to me as I ripped through the crowds and the debris towards the bathyspheres.

Guards tried to stop me once I got to Hephaestus, but after an announcement to let me go came over the loudspeaker from Ryan himself, I was taken to Rapture Control Center -- a place I had only ever heard about. I wasn't sure if he would listen or not, seeing as how I was a member of a branching rebellion, parts of which were still happening in the city -- but he seemed open to hear me out when I finally was let into his office after nearly two hours of waiting in the lobby.

"You killed your wife in the raid at Kashmir Restaurant, yes, Mr. Turner?"

It was the first thing that was said once the door shut behind me. I had no idea how he knew, especially in the short amount of time since it happened. I know I didn't kill my wife no, but I was part of the group that did. I was part of them problem. It was my fault. It's like I put my own hands around her neck and shoved her underwater.

I really didn't want to cry in front of Mr. Ryan, especially since he had some of his goons with him, but I couldn't help it once he asked that. I could only nod and wait with my hands at my sides as a few tears escaped my eyes.

"Did that teach you anything?"

It taught me to not bother with causes. It taught me to sit back and take it. It taught me to throw out everything Andrew Ryan was trying to preach when he built this damn place.

I just nodded. Ryan steepled his fingers in front of him, his elbows resting on his desk. There was silence for a few moments. I had to stifle a sob. I still couldn't tear my eyes from the bastard.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Ryan. I wasn't thinking." I blurted out. He looked as if he might be sympathizing with me. What else did I have to lose? "Please, I just want my daughter back. I can take care of her."

"Oh no, no, Mr. Turner. You're in no state to do that. We're taking good care of her, I promise."

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw that German scientist woman flinch when Ryan said this, but I was probably seeing things. She was standing behind him to the left, while that Dr. Suching or Sucheng, or whatever his name was, was on his right. I couldn't stop staring at him, at Ryan; he seemed so sure of himself. I had seen Fontaine from time to time at the Fisheries before he died -- he looked the same exact way: confident, powerful -- almost arrogant. Atlas did too.

Was that Ryan's plan? To bring a bunch of butting heads down here to doom us all?

"Well, Thomas, I'm honored to tell you that Shirley is needed to help save Rapture--"

"No..." I croaked. I knew where this was going. No. Not Shirley.

He stood from his desk and slipped past the doctor, around the massive piece of furniture to where I was standing alone in the middle of his office. He gently placed his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him. I could smell his cologne. They must've made it in Rapture. It smelled like Rapture.

"Dr. Suchong tells me Judith was pregnant with your second child."

Suchong, that's his name, I knew it was something like-- wait, he had told me my wife was pregnant with our second child and I was busy discussing in my head the stupid doctor's name and how I almost had it right. Andrew Ryan had told me my wife was pregnant. My wife. The woman I watched fry to death in the pool of water at the Kashmir Restaurant roughly four hours earlier.

Happy Fucking New Year, Thomas Turner.

His arm tightened around my shoulders when my knees threatened to give out at the news. He had me propped up against him. I don't remember much of anything after that. He told me it was important that I stick with Shirley now. I asked him how was I to do that when they took her away. He told me I could watch over her for years to come. I vaguely remember him handing me over to Suchong, who put me on a gurney and wheeled me away. I remember watching Andrew Ryan's horribly handsome face smiling and waving goodbye to me as I was rolled from Rapture Control Center. I remember briefly wondering why we were headed to Point Prometheus and not the Medical Pavilion. Surely, I needed medical attention. Surely, I did. Shirley.

_Shirley._

There was nothing left of me after that night. My little apartment was empty. My lovely wife was floating dead at Kashmir. My daughter...

I was just a pile of organs, a bag of bones, grafted into an old diving suit and assigned to my daughter. Shirley. The Little Sister. I could only do what I was told, what I was shown how to do after that. Watch over her as she gathered ADAM -- one of the things Atlas told us to fight for.

I had no thoughts left in my head except for one. The thought of something, someone, _anything_ coming down here and fixing things. Forget the city; forget Rapture and all it ever stood for. Just save these children, save these little girls.

I wanted my daughter to be able to see the stars one day.

No, I didn't just want her to see the stars. I wanted her to reach for them.

I wanted her to touch them.


End file.
